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Saturday, 27 July 2013

The Hungarian Grand Prix: Hungaroring Post-Qualifying Tips

"We've got a steep hill to climb with these tyres and if we did win it would be a miracle." ...Lewis Hamilton

Yesterday I made my pre-qualifying tips for the Hungarian Grand Prix and now that the starting grid has been decided I'm going to follow things up with another set of predictions .

Also, starting from the Hungarian Grand Prix I'm going to carry my
profit/loss forward in each category of bets (pre and post qualifying/shorter and longer priced bets) to make it
easier to track how each category of bets performs. This should make it
easier to compare the relative risks of
sticking with the favourites versus going for a few long shots and also to decide whether it's wiser to place your bets before or after
qualifying.

Shorter Priced Bets:

Top Ten Finish: 10 points on Nico Hulkenberg at 2.75 (Bet Fred)
Nico
Hulkenberg has done reasonably okay on his two previous visits to the
Hungaroring (6th in 2010 and 11th in 2012) and he's also currently the
most profitable Top Ten bet based on the recent form guide, so I'm going to go
for a small punt on that form to continue with another points scoring
finish.

Lap 1 Retirements:20 points on Lap 1 Retrements - Nil at 1.5 (SkyBet, Paddy Power)
This
has been the most consistant bet of the season and if you'd bet £1 on
No Lap 1 Retirements at every Grand Prix then you'd currently be £5.48
in profit.

Winning Margin:10 points on Under 6.5 Seconds at 1.85 (William Hill)
We've
seen close finishes in recent races with the British and German Grand
Prix won by 0.7 and 1.0 seconds. In Q3 the top six drivers were
separated by less than half a second, so once again things look competitive and we may be in for
another close race. I was almost tempted to go for the 'Under 3 Seconds' offered by Bet365 at odds of 3.6, but in the end I've decided to give myself a bigger margin and go for the 'Under 6.5 Seconds' offered by William Hill at odds of 1.85.

Taking A Risk/Longer Priced Bets:

Winning Driver:5 points eachway* (10 points in total) on Romain Grosjean at 7.0 (SkyBet, Coral, BetFred, Totesport)
The hot temperatures are predicted to hurt Mercedes more than most teams during the race, so you can understand why the bookies go with Vettel and not Hamilton as the favourite for the victory. However, Vettel is odds on with every bookie, so looking at the rest of the field it's Grosjean and Alonso who I fancy as the potential biggest threats to Vettel's chances. Grosjean has looked strong all weekend and was also in contention at the Nurburgring a few weeks ago. However, given that his best result so far in his F1 career was his second place at Canada last year, an outright bet on the victory looks an overly brave bet, and I'm therefore going to limit the risk by going for Grosjean eachway.

* SkyBet pay 1/5 the odds for the first three places for an eachway bet.

Not To Be Classified:10 points on Jean-Eric Vergne at 3.75 (Bet Victor)
It's only a few weeks since Jean-Eric Vergne was being mentioned as a contender to replace Mark Webber at Red Bull next year. That possibility seems now to have faded, and that's probably down to Vergne's lack of consistency in finishing races. When he's made it to the chequered flag he's put in some strong results, but at 4 of the last 6 Grand Prix he's suffered DNFs. To be fair, his retirements have been largely down to reliability issues from his Toro Rosso rather than driver mistakes, but whatever the reason, at odds of 3.75 he's a reasonably appealing bet for another DNF.